Garden Lakes

by Jaime Clarke

  Chapter Six

  Sleep came fitfully that first night. The air-conditioning was no match for the weeks of pent-up heat within our residences, and many of us slid our bedroom windows open, the sashes sticking from the dust and dead bugs and spiderwebs encrusted in the metal tracks. The hot night air proved not to be the ally we’d hoped. Also, the open windows were speakers tuned to ominous noises—creaks and croaks and rustling—that frightened us, and our open windows closed, walling each of us inside our twelve-by-twelve tombs.

  We woke to the sound of pounding. Mr. Hancock and Mr. Malagon banged on our doors a minute before our alarm clocks could strike four. The thundering of fists made our hearts race, and for a moment we wondered where we were. The blanket of night still hung around Garden Lakes. Fatigued bodies rotated in showers, hurried along by the knocks of their housemates. Once we were out on the street, the sensation of being up at such an early hour was thrilling, as if we were the last human beings left after a terrible scourge. Laughter rang out, all of us dressed in our regulation khakis and short-sleeved white polo shirts, the traditional uniform of a Garden Lakes fellow, and we made our way to breakfast, a variety of cold cereals presented by sophomores who had been awake minutes longer than the rest of us.

  Mr. Hancock looked oddly refreshed and urged us to eat our cereal, to have two bowls if we could eat them, and to eat something from the gigantic fruit bowl filled with apples and bananas and oranges and pears. Mr. Malagon advised us to stuff a piece of fruit into our pants as a snack for later, the first official break three hours away.

  Our initial surge of adrenaline abated as we paraded into the chapel for the daily prayer. The Garden Lakes chapel was barren of anything remotely religious, save for the pews and the hymnals, dissimilar in every way to the chapel back at Randolph. Absent a confessional and high-windowed ceilings, the Garden Lakes chapel disguised us from one another religiously. At Randolph, it was too clear who was a practicing Catholic—most were—and who was not. And while we were too young to have to cling to differences in religion as a means of separating ourselves from those around us, the demarcation lingered, highlighted in our conscience only at Mass or during chapel.

  Mr. Hancock rose. “Let us pray,” he began, pausing for the drumming of knees against the carpet as we kneeled, resting our elbows on the pews in front of us. “Our Heavenly Father, bless us this day as we embark on our mission of peace and oneness. Let us value one another and one another’s work, for we are all humble servants in your eyes. Let us strive to work diligently and honestly. Let our minds be open. Let us lead by being led and let your word guide us. Amen.”

  The chorus of “Amen” lacked the reverb it did off the domed ceiling of Saint Frances Xavier, instead evaporating with the noise of us crawling up off our knees. Mr. Hancock called for us to open our hymnals to page 131, to “Before the Ending of the Day,” a melodious, fourth-century incantation that Warren had sung repeatedly at Saint Peter the Divine, a Catholic church his mother had once favored in Litchfield Park. The words flowed from Warren’s tongue like a language learned through vigorous study: “Before the ending of the day, / Creator of the world, we pray / That with Thy wonted favor, Thou / Wouldst be our guard and keeper now.” Warren was suspicious of the rhyme scheme, but as with all things church related, his parents told him it was best not to question the small things. “Make big decisions,” his parents said. “Don’t spend time on the little questions.”

  “Before the Ending of the Day” reminded Warren of his uncle, his mother’s brother, who had survived a plane crash in his fifties. Walked away from the wreckage as easily as shaking a cold. Up until that day, Warren had sampled many religions. He’d been born and raised in Phoenix, but his parents had migrated from suburb to suburb, staggering through various neighborhoods as renters, Warren’s mother never quite content with the street they lived on, or their neighbors. In Glendale, the suburb where Warren was born, a sprawl of farms with livestock, his mother had rejoined her native Methodist Church. Warren’s recollection of the Methodists was of their hot chocolate and the giant blue tin of cookies frosted with cubes of sugar the size of diamonds, of which Warren could take as many as he liked.

  Across the aisle, Roger, who would go AWOL in Iraq, taking a band of men with him, and be subsequently court-martialed for killing one of them, mumbled the words to the hymn while flipping through the pages of his hymnal, searching not for words of inspiration but for the page number of the book’s natural crease. Prior to Garden Lakes, Roger had had no working knowledge about how books were printed, but the colonel had primed him in the rudiments of bindery, about how you could see the individual signatures glued and sewn together if you looked closely at the top of a book. A book’s natural crease would fall between signatures; and for the prank to work, the crease had to be avoided.

  Roger was unsure of the prank. He wasn’t even interested in pulling it, but his father had pulled it in Vietnam, and his grandfather had pulled it in World War II, and his great-grandfather had pulled it during World War I, and it was rumored a relation had pulled it while fighting for the South during the Civil War. Roger thought the prank was lame, but since the plan was for him to go to college and not into the military, his father had reasoned that Garden Lakes would be Roger’s only chance to service the peculiar family tradition.

  The hymnal seemed to Roger to have many creases. He laid the book flat during the third verse of “Before the Ending of the Day” to examine where it would fall open. The pages fanned like a paper peacock. He thumbed through the signatures, feeling for any resistance. He decided on page 67. Not too close to the front, not too far toward the back. Sixty-seven. Sixteen-page signatures. Sixteen times four plus three. Roger felt confident with his choice. The next step was to make sure Mr. Hancock suspected the theft. He planned to thieve gradually—forks, knives, and spoons, two each, to test the waters. If no one noticed, he’d double the quantity until someone did. He imagined that, like every other resource at Garden Lakes, silverware was a premium and any draw on the supply would be obvious.

  Our voices faltered toward the end of “Before the Ending of the Day,” the tune accentuated with a less-than-hearty “Amen.” We resumed our seats, and Mr. Malagon and Mr. Hancock ascended to the front of the chapel. We took a collective measured breath, knowing what was next: the official rules and regulations of life at Garden Lakes. Much like on the first day of a new school year, we knew what to expect. Senior tales of life at Garden Lakes had trickled down through the ranks, so even incoming freshmen knew the deal. Our nervousness, however, stemmed not from the official decree, but from the knowledge that with the decree came the end of the ceremonies. Our casual air, tinged with arrogance, dissipated as we wandered through the ever-increasing dimness brought on by the drone of Mr. Hancock’s voice.

  Schedules run off on colored paper—pink for sophomores and blue for fellows—were distributed. The schedules were virtually identical: rise at four a.m., breakfast at four thirty, chapel at five. The blue schedule called for construction from five thirty until the midmorning break at seven thirty; the pink schedule called for lunch prep. After the break, fellows returned to construction and the sophomores went to the kitchen, this time for dinner prep. Lunch was served to the fellows at eleven by the sophomores, who ate at noon while the fellows were in class. The sophomores cleaned up after lunch and made final dinner preparations until two, at which point the schedules converged on the playing field for sports until four, when the fellows, again served by the sophomores, took dinner. The sophomores ate their dinner at five, after the fellows had retreated to their housing for the reading hour. Once the kitchen closed for the night, the sophomores reported to their pod leaders’ housing for tutoring and study from American Democracy, the spiral-bound book prepared by Mr. Hancock, a collection of the documents integral to the founding of America and the birth and maintenance of democracy. Free time was slotted for eight, curfew and lights-out at nine.

  “I don’t have to tell
you boys that deviation from the schedule will not be tolerated,” Mr. Hancock said. He commanded the sophomores to pick up their copies of American Democracy at his house. Each copy was marked with a street number corresponding to the house numbers on Regis Street, indicating the sophomores’ pod leaders. The fellows were to verify attendance before tutoring began. “Unfortunately, our numbers work out evenly now,” Mr. Hancock said. “Mr. Malagon will now say a few words on that matter.”

  Mr. Malagon, who had been standing behind Mr. Hancock, stepped forward. “Thank you, Mr. Hancock,” he said. “Yes. Undoubtedly you boys know that Mr. Quinn has left us. That was his prerogative. Mr. Hancock and I are not against the exercise of freedom and personal liberty; anyone who doesn’t wish to be here, who doesn’t feel he can benefit from the Garden Lakes program, is free to leave.” Mr. Malagon paused, looking around. “If anyone else would like to leave, please say so.” He paused again and our heads swiveled, looking for a telltale flinch or a head hung to mask plans of desertion.

  No one came forward.

  “Good, men,” Mr. Malagon said.

  The liturgy ended and we herded into the classroom, the sophomores splintering off for the kitchen to clean the breakfast dishes and prepare, under Mr. Hancock’s direction, the meals for lunch and dinner.

  A man in his late thirties stood at the front of the classroom, rubbing his face, his stubby fingers mowing the underside of his beard. We grabbed chairs at the four tables that ran the length of the room. Outside the window, the stranger’s white pickup truck was parked, two wheels up on the curb, STATEWIDE CONSTRUCTION emblazoned in silver on the side.

  We knew who the stranger was; we just didn’t know his name. The stranger embodied the nonchalance with which we’d described to anyone who didn’t know, or anyone who did but would listen, how it was that a crew of unskilled high school juniors could drywall an entire house. Our fathers had listened halfheartedly to our vague talk of sawing and hammering. They knew as little as we did about how a house was built. To them, construction of a house meant deciding on a floor plan, or choosing between lap siding, panel siding, stucco, and brick exteriors. To us, it meant even less. Our confidence was predicated only on the fact that classes before us had done it. We were clueless about what had been completed in the weeks and months preceding our arrival at Garden Lakes: the grading of the site; foundation construction; the framing of the house; the installation of the windows and doors; roofing; siding; a roughing of the electrical, plumbing, and HVAC; as well as insulating the house. Any one of those chores sounded to us the same as drywalling. We were just here to complete the task at hand. And while we knew the project was largely a demonstration of our ability to work together, we also knew Mr. Malagon would be there to chaperone, and we knew that Statewide Construction would oversee the project, driving out to Garden Lakes to inspect the house after each phase.

  Mr. Malagon introduced Jack Baker, whose later kidnapping would prove to be our downfall, and the room grew silent. Mr. Baker jumped to life like a marionette, seized with nervous energy, which he walked off by pacing in front of the proctor’s desk at the head of the room.

  “Morning, gentlemen,” Mr. Baker began. His voice reached the far corners of the room, but he talked to the floor as he paced. “I guess you know why you’re here. This is my first year doing this, though I’ve been with Statewide for fifteen years. Some of your predecessors worked with my predecessor, Joe Cotton. He’s retired, so you got me.” Mr. Baker continued pacing, and it soon became evident that he was not going to look up at any of us. We looked at Mr. Malagon, hoping to share a laugh with him, but he was engrossed in the pages of a white binder foil-stamped with the same silver logo as the truck outside.

  “So, here’s how it works. You’re here for what, roughly forty days?”

  Mr. Malagon nodded.

  “Plenty of time. There are three phases.” Mr. Baker flashed three thick fingers at us. “Phase one consists of measuring, cutting, and hanging the drywall. Phase two is the taping, beading, stapling, and application of compound. Phase three is sanding, texturing, and painting. Phases one and two will require separately managed teams working in unison; each component of the third phase will require all hands for each step. The job will take a minimum of thirty-four days and a maximum of thirty-eight days. Any questions so far?”

  Figs, who would later succeed in covering up an embezzlement at his firm, shifting the blame to an innocent department head, which would result in the department head’s firing, raised his hand, and to our surprise, Mr. Baker locked eyes with him.

  “How long will each phase take?”

  “Roughly two weeks. I’m scheduled . . .” Mr. Baker consulted a binder. “I’m scheduled to inspect the site fourteen days from now, with another inspection fourteen days later. Then a final inspection at some point before the event.” Mr. Baker’s opaque reference to the Open House on the last day of Garden Lakes suggested he was oblivious about what the Open House was, that he didn’t know it was the date we were all anticipating, when our parents would drive out to pick us up and marvel at the finished product.

  Mr. Baker reached into a box hidden behind the desk and continued talking while distributing a stack of small black notebooks. “These are your job journals. Each man is responsible for his own journal. You should only write in your journal in pencil.” He handed out boxes of pencils and tiny red sharpeners stamped with his company’s logo in foil. “The job journal is as important to any building job as a hammer, screwdriver, or ladder. I can’t stress that enough.

  “Now, what goes in a job journal? Page one should be titled ‘Living Room.’ Skip four pages and name the next one ‘Kitchen,’ and so forth until there’s a section for every room in the house. How many bedrooms is this house, anyone know?”

  “Three,” Smurf, the future slanderer, said. He stuck his tongue out for our amusement, knowing Mr. Baker wouldn’t see.

  “Three bedrooms,” Mr. Baker said, again consulting his binder. “Upstairs bath. No garage.”

  “The garage is converted into an extra room,” Mr. Malagon said.

  “There ductwork for this room?” Mr. Baker asked, seeking the answer more from his binder than from Mr. Malagon.

  “The room has windows for cross-ventilation,” Warren said. “It’s like an Arizona room.” Long before he’d be an unwitting accomplice to an Internet scam, Warren had helped his grandparents build an Arizona room onto their house one summer and was familiar with the architectural absurdity.

  “So,” Mr. Baker said, finding his place again. “A few facts about drywall: A sheet of drywall is composed of a hardened gypsum core wrapped in paper—smooth paper on the face of the sheet, folded around the long edges, and a rougher paper as backing. Drywall doesn’t only come in four-by-eight panels. There are different drywall types for different drywall needs. Types of drywall include moisture-resistant drywall, called greenboard or blueboard because of the coloration of its papering. Moisture-resistant drywall can tolerate high humidity and is used primarily in parts of the country where it rains frequently. Here in Arizona we use greenboard for bathrooms, the area around kitchen sinks, and laundry or utility rooms. Anywhere you suspect water will collect or areas that will be exposed to moisture for prolonged periods of time. You should write that down.”

  A rustling filled the room as we reached into our pockets for our pencils and sharpeners. Lindy’s red sharpener skidded across the tile floor, and Roger kicked it back toward him, the sharpener ricocheting off Lindy’s foot before Assburn picked it up and handed it back. We turned our journals over and scrawled “Types of Drywall” on the back, employing a skill we had learned in Father Mason’s memorization classes, called listing, the theory being that once you listed a series of things in a relevant order, you could recall the items with ease. Based on the partial information we’d received at that juncture, we spaced down under the heading and penciled in “Moisture-resistant,” leaving room above the notation for a description of the stand
ard drywall and enough space below for a description of fire-resistant drywall, a type of drywall we guessed was a specialty, the valuable lesson learned in Father Mason’s class being that you didn’t always get the information in the order of importance.

  Mr. Baker continued. “Standard or regular drywall is forty-eight inches wide and comes in panels up to sixteen feet. They come in four thicknesses”—Mr. Baker held up two fingers on each hand—“five-eighths of an inch, half an inch, three-eighths of an inch, and quarter inch. For our purposes, we will be using the thickest board, which is?”

  Smurf’s hand shot up first in a forest of arms.